A Record-Breaking 12,000 Mile Electric Vehicle Journey Around the United States

About the Trip

At nearly 12,000-miles, The Epic Electric American Roadtrip will be the longest trip ever taken in an all-electric vehicle.

We’ve formally registered the attempt with Guinness World Records.

The vehicle making the trek is a stock Tesla Model S sedan, navigating via Recargo’s PlugShare app for locating EV charging stations. Along the way, we will be charging at Tesla’s newly-built, proprietary string of cross-country “Supercharger” stations, which can top off the Tesla Model S’s 250-mile+ range battery in under 30 minutes per stop. We are estimating the journey to take around 18 days, but the schedule can vary depending on weather, stops for media interviews, and traffic.

There are several ways the general public can participate, including a limited number of ride-alongs, plus meetups, and the ability to interact with the driver, through Twitter. In addition, people can follow along via a live, online map that shows the drivers the vehicles real-time position, speed, miles driven, and energy consumption.

The trip is sponsored by electric vehicle (EV) software and information services company Recargo Inc., the parent company of the leading mobile “charge-finder” app, PlugShare, and the EV research firm, PlugInsights. The driver on the journey is PlugInsights Managing Director, Norman Hajjar.

The journey is being made to dramatize the unlimited potential of gasoline-free electric vehicles. Far from experimental and quirky, battery-only EVs are only limited by the public charging infrastructure to support them, much as gas vehicles are supported by gas stations. According to research from PlugInsights, the key is to expand the number of strategically sited public chargers called DC Quick Chargers (DCQCs), which can shorten charging periods to around a half hour, ideal for long journeys.

The record setting route will touch 28 states and all four corners of the United States: Washington, Maine, Florida and Southern California. It starts at Portland’s PDX airport, heads up to northern Washington state, doubles back to Southern California, slices across the country to Maine, heads south along the Eastern Seaboard to Port St. Lucie, Florida, and then doubles back to Recargo’s offices in Venice California.

Fuel Facts

There is no added cost for the electricity being used in the journey. Tesla makes their Supercharger network available for free to anyone who pays for the “fast charge” option on their vehicle.

A gas car making the same journey (getting 25MPG) would burn around 480 gallons of gas at a cost of around $2000.